


From a Distance

by Mikey (mikes_grrl)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, M/M, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-21
Packaged: 2017-11-19 03:59:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikes_grrl/pseuds/Mikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil is actually a very jealous bastard at heart. Too bad Clint Barton doesn't even know Phil's interested.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ArielT](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArielT/gifts), [NessaW (PepperVL)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperVL/gifts).



The first time was ten months after Barton had passed his probationary period with SHIELD. It was his third mission, his second as an asset on an op run by Phil, and his first actually going undercover as anything more involved than a very lethal waiter. 

He was, in fact, the bait. 

It was a common role for an agent to take on. People, especially criminals, were notoriously stupid when it came to money and sex and any combination thereof. Agents like Barton—and Phil, back in day—had to have fluid sexual identities and flexible interests. More than a few agents had washed out of fieldwork because they couldn't deal with the sex. 

Which was why Phil wasn't prepared to look at the live video feed and watch Barton systematically, whole heartedly, seduce a man who went by name of Scarface Johnson. Gone was the bravado, replaced with sweet smiles and batting eyelashes. Instead of smart-assed comments, Barton was giving up light, sugary laughs. Scarface usually liked his boys young and innocent, and Barton, at 27, was too old to pull that off. But he played to his previously-hidden boyish charm, tilting his head coyly and rubbing at his neck shyly.

He was fucking adorable, and Phil wanted to pick him up and take him home and pet him until they both came like rockets. 

He also wanted to break the neck of the ass-hole sitting next to Barton, his greasy hand pawing at his leg.

That was just the first time. 

\----------

The next time that stands out in Phil's mind was sometime in their second year working together. There were other times and places where Barton had to seduce or be seduced, it wasn't uncommon, but that time was special because Phil was stuck in the trunk of the damn car while Clint was fucked senseless in the backseat. 

Of course that had not been the plan, but equipment malfunctions are never convenient and Phil had broken cover to get a new comm to Barton, the both of them realizing too late that time had run out and Barton's mark was walking into the garage. Barton physically tossed Phil into the trunk, slamming it shut just as the mark got to the car. 

It the guy was suspicious, he never had a chance to act on it because Barton was all over him with charm and sex noises and gasping, desperate pleas. Phil clutched himself in the dark, determined to stay professional no matter what. 

The mark was needed for information he had, and for the place he held in the crime syndicate he worked for. He couldn't be killed or compromised; he had to be left in pretty much the same condition they found him. Clint was stuck playing the paramour, and he played it to the hilt. 

Phil was turned on but doing okay right up until Barton started begging. 

"God, yeah, honey, so fucking huge, I feel you so hard in me, baby, yeah, come on I need it so bad, don't make me beg, I need you so hard please baby please—" 

The mark grunted and pounded, shaking the car, while Barton kept up a steady stream, his voice harsh like gravel and sweet like honey as he talked the guy all the way through the fuck until Barton was yelling as he came, gasping for air. Phil pinched the end of his dick mercilessly just to keep from coming from the noises Barton was making.

Later, Phil was pretty sure the mission was a success. Phil managed not to eviscerate the mark in a pique of ill-advised jealousy, and Barton got the information they needed. That was what the paperwork said (except for the jealousy part), since Phil was the one who wrote it and signed off on it. In all honesty, though, the whole thing after the car sex was pretty much a wash. They could have arrested Captain America for crimes against humanity and Phil probably would have signed off on that too. 

\----------

It kept going like that, mission after mission. Only one in every four needed Barton to play the sex card, and often he did not even need to go all the way. Phil didn't care about that because it was part of the job, which he knew damn well. 

What drove him nuts was Barton's bright eyes as he danced with a dangerous woman; his self-depreciating laugh while he slammed shots with a man twice his age; his mischievous grin at the young (too young) inseparable, incestuous son and daughter twins of a notorious weapons dealer. 

For no reason at all, he felt like Barton was mocking him every time.

\----------

By their fifth year together at SHEILD, Phil and Barton were a tight team. Professional. Effective. Deadly. 

Phil had a lot to be proud of. The former carnie and criminal was now one of their top field agents, his natural intelligence coming out in a dozen ways in the field. Together, they were good. No, scratch that: they were fucking great. 

Professionally. 

But it ground down onto Phil's soul every time one of _those_ ops came up on rotation. It was a liability for Phil to want to gun down every person who set hands on Barton, or who Barton smiled at with intent. It was a liability and bad form and bad habit and a generally all round terrible idea to humor. 

Phil humored it relentlessly, in triplicate. 

And then Barton fell off the grid for forty-eight hours. SHEILD was on high alert, Phil was a very calm and collected basket case, and Fury was slightly annoyed. 

When Barton showed up again, it was to appear out of nowhere in Phil's office with the Black Widow by his side. 

They were holding hands.

\------------

Phil was accepting of Natasha, not because Clint pleaded her case or Fury recognized an opportunity. Phil saw a young woman sitting in his office pretending not to clutch at Barton's hand with a grip that was probably causing Barton to loose circulation in his fingers. He saw the flutter of her eyes as she spied for an escape route, and the bags under her eyes that spoke of exhaustion and suspicion. She was scared and nervous, despite her cool demeanor. She didn't trust him and she barely trusted Barton, but she was there, determined to start over, or at least start again.

She reminded Phil of a much younger Clint Barton, hanging on to the thread of his humanity as Phil talked him down off a ledge, talked him away from the assassination job he had been paid to do, talked him right into SHEILD.

Phil knew that Barton saw the same thing he did, and he could not say no to the one thing Barton had ever asked of him. 

\--------------

The next two years saw them come together as a unique team: a handler with two dedicated assets. Romanov wouldn't work with anyone other than Phil, and no one would work with Barton without Phil. 

Phil didn't ask what they did together during their down time. It wasn't his business. His job was to keep them in top form, keep them out of trouble, and keep the paperwork flowing. He had a number of other responsibilities given his role in SHIELD so there were plenty of times when Phil was put on an operation alone. He was never alone, of course, but it just felt that way without Barton or Romanov on his team. 

He almost preferred that, though, to the missions he was sent to supervise where Barton and Romanov played at being a couple. Sometimes they were married, sometimes they were having an affair, sometimes Romanov was a call girl and rarely, Barton was a gigolo. Once, for the sake of a very screwed up group of international terrorists, Barton had to play stalker/serial killer to Natasha's weeping kidnap victim (and if Phil ever had nightmares about the creepy, disturbed way Barton had acted on that mission, well, that was nobody's business but Phil's). He had seen them play every combination of lover and knew their "baby doll patter" (as Barton called it) by heart. That was all okay. It was when the lights went down and Barton and Romanov had to convince everyone listening in that they were enthusiastically having sex that Phil's life went to hell in a hand basket. 

Because Barton and Romanov were in outstanding physical condition, and they both enjoyed sex. A lot. 

Phil had listened to them go at it for four hours, once, and he still wasn't sure how he got through the night without passing out or wrecking the op. He thought he deserved a medal for surviving cruel and unusual punishment, but instead when the mission was over he just holed up in his apartment and masturbated until his hand cramped up. 

So Phil's life was, on the whole, utterly miserable. He was in love with his asset who either didn't know or didn't care and who got plenty of sex from his partner-slash-girlfriend. Phil had to stand by while everyone but Nick Fury himself tapped Barton's ass or was happily tapped by Barton in turn, because it was part of Phil's fucking goddamn crappy job description. 

He was used to it. It was okay, because it had been status quo for years by that point. Phil was a Level 7 agent, he was competent and respected, and he could keep his dick in his pants. He could live with a broken heart and he could manage his jealousy without compromising the missions. He had made his choice to stay silent about his feelings for Barton, and absolutely nothing ever convinced him that it was anything other than the best plan of (non-)action for the sake of his team, his sanity, and SHIELD. 

It wasn't until he was bleeding out on the helicarrier's deck that Phil thought he might possibly, just maybe, have made a terrible mistake.


	2. Chapter 2

Recovering from a near-death experience was far, far worse than actually dying. Dying had involved physical shock and blood in his mouth and a dark yawning chasm of nothingness, whereas _not_ dying consisted of living in excruciating pain broken up with bouts of intense agony. Phil was man enough to be grateful for surviving while still being bitter about the process. He also thought that doctors were far too cautious in prescribing morphine, and planned to send a memo to someone about that.

The first few weeks, which he spent mostly unconscious anyway, he was alone. Fury explained that he lied to everyone about Phil's death, and had kept lying when it wasn't too certain that Phil might just go ahead and die anyway. By the time Phil was complaining about surviving, Fury admitted that telling the Avengers the truth might end up being more of a liability to SHIELD than keeping Phil dead. 

At one point in his life-before-death, Phil would have agreed with that. The mission would have been the priority, no matter the personal cost. That had been Phil's mantra for years as he listened to and sometimes even watched Barton get fucked in every position imaginable by people who weren't Phil.

Things had changed. 

Phil was patient. He agreed with Fury and then spent three weeks behaving like the perfect SHIELD drone he had always been, doing what the unsuspecting doctors and nurses told him and taking his meds on schedule. He was in a private, mostly empty hospital ward somewhere in Pennsylvania, so it was easy to play at being a rich civilian and convince everyone that he was harmless. Once his mental clock ticked down, though, and he saw his SHIELD guard reduced from four to two to one, Phil made his move. He made it with a crutch and a bag full of pain pills, because he was no fool, but he had not lost his touch either: his guard, two nurses and a security night watchman would be waking up hours later, wondering what had hit them. The only other patient on his floor gave him a thumbs up as he walked out.

Phil paid the taxi driver outside the hospital with the cash he had pulled from the petty cash drawer at the nurses' station, and did not feel guilty about that at all.

\-------------

What Phil had not counted on was JARVIS.

"Phil Coulson is dead, sir. I'm sorry to inform you of this fact, but he died during the Battle of Manhattan in March. Please identify yourself."

"Phillip Coulson." Phil leaned against the elevator wall, fruitlessly punching at the button for the 52nd floor, which would only work if the right identity key card was swiped in first. He knew that, but he was tired and his whole left side was throbbing and he was not sure how much longer he could keep going. He had popped a pain pill halfway through the long taxi ride and it was starting to mess with his head. He punched the button again. And again. 

Suddenly the car jerked into motion and Phil braced himself so he didn't fall down. He expected to be dumped out on one of the office floors with a security detail waiting, but instead the elevator kept climbing, all the way t the 52nd floor. Phil smiled, his pain and drug addled mind grateful that JARVIS had decided to let him through, whatever the reason why. 

The door opened and Phil blinked at the business end of one of Barton's arrows. 

"Oh. Barton. Just the man I was hoping to find."

"Identify yourself, motherfucker, before I bury this arrow in your skull," Barton snapped. 

"Hey," Phil grumbled. He was expecting a little bit warmer reception than that.

"Who are you?" Romanov appeared in front of him, her red hair flaming in the lights. 

"Phillip Coulson. I'm…in a lot of pain. Could I sit down, maybe?" He stumbled forward on his crutch, heading for one of the couches in his line of site. Miraculously, no one seemed inclined to stop him, but Barton trailed him with his bow string held tight, ready to fire. Romanov kept her distance, pacing him as he slowly dragged his way along.

"Jesus, it really is Coulson," Stark said from somewhere.

"We don't know that. We don't know who he is," Barton snarled, his voice tinged with an edge of hysteria that Phil knew only he and Romanov could hear. 

Phil finally worked his way down onto the couch and breathed out a heavy sigh of relief. Leaning all the way back, he tipped his head towards Barton. "I'm really tired of you having sex with everyone but me." 

"I'm gonna, hey, let's go call Fury. Or Pepper. Or, you know, anyone. Let's go do that," Stark said, bustling other people out of the room. Phil didn't care. 

Barton did not lower his bow. "Who are you?"

"Because I'm in love with you, and have been for years. I know you love Natasha, you make a beautiful couple, I've seen you two together enough to know. You love her, and you don't love me, which is just a shame, but I had to tell you. I'm tired of being dead, I want to be alive, and I think my big take-away from being stabbed by a god is that life is too short to live with that kind of regret. I love you, I hate seeing you with other people, and I think you're going to need a new handler after this." 

The bow wavered and dropped, the string going slack and the arrow hanging limply from Barton's fingers. "Coulson?"

"What?"

"No, I mean…it's you. Agent Phil Coulson. It's really you."

Coulson huffed in annoyance. "I told you that." 

"You're kind of whacked out on the good drugs, aren't you, sir?"

"No," Phil snapped bitterly. "No, the doctors won't give me any more morphine, those bastards. I'm on codeine now, and I'm in a lot of pain."

"You were dead."

Phil felt his eyes drooping, and wondered if Barton was just going to turn him back over to Fury. "No. Don't…don't wanna be dead."

Barton's voice was far away. "Yeah. That sucked. I don't want you to be dead either, sir."

They were talking around and over him but Phil had made his play, and he was exhausted. He closed his eyes and decided to deal with the fall out when he woke up. 

\-------------

Waking up happened slowly, drip by drip, as his brain came back online. Phil flopped his hand around and felt an IV attached to him, even though he was not feeling a lot of pain. More intravenous drugs, then, which probably meant his ass had been carted back to the hospital. Sighing, he decided to open his eyes. 

He figured out quickly that he wasn't in the hospital. He had no idea where he was. He tipped his head to look around and came nose-to-nose with Clint Barton, who was awake and staring at thim. 

"Hey, sleepyhead."

"Barton?" Phil peered at Barton, registering the fact that he was in bed with Phil. Or, at least, next to him. Barton was dressed in sweats and lying on top of the covers, but there was no mistaking the fact that he was curled around Phil protectively. "What are you doing?"

"Watching over you." Baron's voice was ragged and low. He stared at Phil for a moment, his expression guarded, then sat up and perched on the edge of the bed with his back to Phil. It gave Phil a chance to take in the room. It was clearly a medical suite, and he was raised up high on a medical bed, but it looked more like a high-end hotel and the bed was easily wide enough for two people. 

"I…are we in Stark Tower?" Phil blinked at Barton's tense back.

"Yeah. Stark kind of flipped out when you showed up, and I think Fury actually managed to piss off Captain America. It was…well, it was pretty damn epic. You should have been awake for that. Short version is that you're being held under 'house arrest' at Stark Tower. Possibly forever, if the Stark-Rogers line up has anything to say about it."

Phil raised his hand, letting his fingers rest against Barton's lower back. Barton took a deep breath, sounding shaky. "You were kind of dead, sir. For over a month."

"Not my call."

"Fuck." Barton kept his back to him but did not move away from his touch. 

"Barton—"

"God damnit, my name is Clint." He spun around and grabbed Phil's hand. 

"Clint." Phil couldn't help but smile as he said it, and Clint's expression shattered.

"You meant it."

"All of it. I love you, and I'm a jealous bastard. I'm sorry." Phil tried to drag his hand away from Clint's hold, but he was as weak as a kitten. Clint rubbed his thumb soothingly over the back of Phil's hand, sending tingles up his arm despite the dull throb of the pain killers. "I should have told you a long time ago."

Clint's expression was still guarded. "Why didn't you?"

"I didn't want to lose you. If the closest I ever came to being with you was listening to you with other people…well. I'm sometimes not an honorable man."

Clint grinned, his smile breaking through like the sun. "Don't worry, sir, I'll keep your secret from Captain America."

Phil snorted and then spent a few moments trying very hard not to cough. Clint moved back up the bed to pull Phil into his arms, wrapping himself around Phil as if protecting him from the pain. When Phil was breathing evenly again, Clint nuzzled at his ear.

"I've been in love with you for a long time, asshole."

Phil held himself still. That was not something he had ever factored in. "How long?"

"Since you let me bring in Natasha. You did that for me, because I asked you. No one else would have taken that risk on my word. But you did."

"I saw how important she is to you."

"She is, not gonna lie. She is. But that's what made me love you: you did it because it was important to me. Fuck, no one has ever loved me that much." Clint tipped his head until their lips brushed, then pushed himself into the kiss. It was long and awkward and wonderful; Phil was not sure if the drugs were working in his favor or not. Clint nudged him back with his nose. "I always wanted you, but you weren't interested. You drove me nuts. I just…gave up hoping. But I was never going to stop wanting."

Phil sucked in a deep breath, cringing as his bad lung rebelled. Clint clutched at him a little frantically and Phil patted his arm. "I'm okay. I'm alive."

"I lost you. God, I lost you! Don't do that again, sir. Never, ever do that again."

"My name is Phil, actually."

Clint smiled at him, smirked, then kissed him before Phil could think of anything else to say. 

"So, jealous, huh Phil?" Clint asked a little later, when Phil had shoved him back so he could breathe freely again. 

"Very."

"I never noticed." Clint's voice was deceptively casual, but Phil heard the sharpness of the question.

"You had a job to do. It was always on a mission, and we're professionals." Phil sighed. "And I hated it."

Clint smiled again, this time with the lazy, predatory air of a stalking cat. "Good thing I'm an Avenger now, then. No more undercover missions for me." He looked around, frowning. "Hey, that means a lot less sex. This could be a problem, Phil," he said, turning back to Phil with a gleam in his eye.

Phil settled back into Clint's arms, closing his eyes. "In the short term, perhaps. But I have long-term plans for you so I don't expect that to be an issue."

Clint breathed heavily into Phil's ear. "Figures that you'd have a plan."

"Trust in me, Barton."

"I always have, sir. Always." Clint laughed, a warm vibration that lulled Phil back to sleep.


End file.
